The popularity of tennis, which requires an open space of at least 60-feet by 120-feet to properly accommodate a regulation size court, has stimulated considerable interest in related racquet and paddle games such as platform tennis and paddle tennis having playing courts of substantially smaller size. There has also developed considerable interest in table tennis or Ping Pong which by reason of its small playing surface, approximately 5 by 9-feet, can readily be accommodated in recreation rooms and other confined indoor spaces.
As between tennis, platform tennis and paddle tennis there is sufficient similarity in ball stroking so that players can generally switch between these games without much difficulty and can develop proficiency for all three games through time spent in playing one of the games.
Unfortunately table tennis or Ping Pong, which is played on a table 30-inches high, provides a type of ball stroking which is unique to the game and provides no meaningful practice and training experience which can be helpful to the player of tennis, platform tennis or paddle tennis. Many players of Ping Pong, for example, hold the paddle in the fingers to orient perpendicularly to the arm so that the stroking bears no relation to that in tennis and the like. Even for the player of Ping Pong who holds the paddle, tennis fashion, as an extension of the arm so that side strokes might theoretically be comparable to tennis play, the location of the playing surface is such as to require a quite different angular orientation of the paddle or racquet head than the orientation which would be appropriate in the playing of tennis, platform tennis or paddle tennis.
There is a need, therefore, for a modified form of table tennis of a size to be accommodated in recreation rooms and other confined spaces, which will require a type of ball stroking comparable to that in tennis, platform tennis and paddle tennis to provide useful practice and training for the latter games. A preliminary patent search has failed to reveal any table tennis game which will accomplish this purpose.
The closest prior art developed in the search is U.S. Pat. No. 3,717,343, issued Feb. 20, 1973 to Huntington Hartford for an indoor-outdoor tennis game. This game involves two tables approximately 12-feet wide, 6-feet deep and 26 to 30-inches high. The tables are spaced apart by a distance of 4 to 6-feet and connected by a net disposed essentially parallel to the surfaces of the tables. While the game is described as one which "gives the players the feeling of playing lawn tennis" it falls far short of attaining this goal for several reasons.
Having no elevated net between the tables, the game affords no practice and experience in properly lofting the ball, as is necessary to clear the net in lawn tennis. Furthermore, the height and width of the tables provides playing surfaces so unrelated to the apparent size to the player of the playing surfaces of tennis, platform tennis and paddle tennis that ball stroking in playing of the Hartford tennis game can provide very little in the way of useful practice and training for tennis and the like.